


lashing out

by abandonment (ihunger)



Series: Comfortember [2]
Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: Age Regression, Emotional Constipation, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:33:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27462754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ihunger/pseuds/abandonment
Summary: Based off of a line Pickles says in Fatherklok – “I broke your phone! Punish me! Pay attention to me!” I think it says a lot about Pickles’ character. Fortunately, there is someone in Dethklok who can see through Pickles' bullshit.Comfortember – Day 8 – Lashing Out
Series: Comfortember [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2002312
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	lashing out

The Dethphone on Charles’ desk rang.

A number of thoughts went through the CFO’s head when he heard the ringtone. One was that the boys were just down the hall, so calling him was rather unnecessary but he had worked here too long to bother questioning anything his boys did anymore. The other was that the boys hadn’t interrupted him all day. With a glance at his clock, Charles confirmed it was around 6 PM. By this time yesterday, Dethklok had visited him at least 5 times. Today was dead silent.

That wasn’t good. He picked up the phone and answered it, not bothering to check who it was. It was some member of Dethklok, as they were the only ones who had his Dethphone number. 

“Hello?”

Over the speakers, Charles could hear a small scuffle. “Yeah, it’s Nathan,” a voice said, “Pickles is like, I dunno he’s been a real dick today and he won’t come and see you. He keeps like, crying or whatever but when we ask he starts breaking shit. He broke my fucking – Pickles, if you touch that TV I swear to fucking – uh, call you back.” Nathan hung up before Charles could get a word in. Not that it mattered, he supposed. Nathan wasn’t the issue here.

The task was time sensitive but Charles waited. He drummed his fingers against the top of his desk and weighed his options best he could. Every member of Dethklok had their own little obnoxious coping mechanisms that Charles had hoped to break each of them out of. A project almost a decade into the making, there were varying degrees of success among the boys: Skwisgaar ate not only with regularity but ate well, Nathan had been weaned off the liquor ever so slightly so he could at least function without it, Murderface’ arms and thighs no longer bared fresh red marks, and Toki… Well, Toki was a work in progress, but they all were at the end of the day. 

Pickles, though, had made almost no progress, though Charles knew better than to blame him. Pickles was the still the closest to the sources of his trauma so any attempts would be drawings in the sand – washed away by the next time Pickles went to a family dinner and came back too drunk to remember and too depressed to cry. It hurt, seeing any of them like this.

So with some hesitation, Charles pressed down the button on the intercom mic. “Pickles,” he said, “Can you come to my office please? I need to talk to you.”  
He wasn’t intending to humiliate the man, but knew that this may be the only way to get Pickles to come. Charles knew his voice had some effect on the man though he would never admit that. 

Even in that case, Charles was still surprised when he heard a knock on his door before Pickles stumbled in. Everything about the scene was wrong from the get-go. Pickles’ eyes were red-rimmed and tear stains drew lines down red cheeks. He held onto a bottle like it was a stuffed animal and he was a child lost in the mall, a metaphor that Charles found may be more relevant than he thought.

“Sit,” Charles said, waving his hand towards a chair. “Please.”

Pickles sat and kept his eyes down, ashamed to even look Charles in the eyes.

“I hear you’ve been uh, causing problems for the other boys today. You know, Pickles, there are better ways of, ah, expressing yourself around here. You could see Twinkletits-”

“Fuck that guy,” Pickles interjected. “He doesn’t fucking get it.”

“Get what? He is a trained therapist, Pickles. I’m sure he’s seen all sorts of patients with, ah, family issues like you before.”

Pickles narrowed his eyes and jammed his finger towards Charles. “What do you mean, with family issues like you, huh? You mean being in the biggest band in the fuckin’ world and still being treated like shit? Those kind of family issues?”

In a placating gesture, Charles held up his hands. “I didn’t mean to upset you, my apologies. But uh, yes, that is what I mean. I mean, having a family that prefers one sibling over another is not that uncommon, unfortunately. There are plenty of resources that we have for you, Pickles, but I must know what you need before I can help you.”

With the large leather chair and his turned inward body posture, Pickles looked more like a sulking teen than a man pushing middle age as he thought. “I… I never got treated well as a kid, you know. Even when I was like, a baby and stuff. They’d always give more attention to fuckin’ Seth.”

To this, Charles only nodded. He would let Pickles get out what he needed to before trying to interject. 

“And, and then like, my dad was this asshole about everything when I got a little older. Can’t play with toys anymore, can’t color, you’re a big boy now, you can’t do that baby shit. I was still a little fuckin’ kid though, you know? What kinda little kid can’t play with toys? Why did I have to be a fuckin’ big boy so early? I mean, shit, Toki still has stuffed animals and shit!”

“I sense that you’re a little jealous of Toki,” Charles noted, “and his, ah, connection to his childhood.”

Pickles shrugged. “I guess. I’m not mad at the kid, I mean, he had a worse childhood than any of us jack-offs. It just seems to work for him, the coloring and stuff. He acts like a little kid still ‘cause he didn’t get to be one, but I can’t let myself just do that.”

“What if you could?” Charles said, though he sounded more unsure than he had in this entire discussion. He had tried some things out with the other boys that seemed to help them with their issues, but bringing them up to Pickles while he was in such a sensitive emotional state may prove to be challenging. What if he took it as an insult, or worse, found Charles disgusting for even suggesting it?

“Whadd’ya mean?”

Charles leaned back in his chair and popped each of his knuckles in turn, keeping his gaze focused on his hands rather than Pickles’ curious look. “I, ah, I mean, have you heard of age regression before? It is a, a term for those who – well, regress, I suppose – to a younger age mentally and allow themselves to act as a child again.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over the office. Even the usual whir of computer fans or the shuffle of people moving outside was absent. For a few breathless moments, Charles thought this might be it. Pickles would throw the bottle at him and insult him and then storm out, with their relationship in tatters from now on. The worst part was that Pickles’ face seemed utterly absent of any emotion. No anger, no sadness, just contemplation that was the worst form of suspense.

Pickles was the first to break the silence. “I’ve never heard of that before, but uh, I guess it sounds nice. I don’t gotta put on a diaper or nothing, do I?”

Despite his previous anxiety Charles stifled back a laugh. “No, nothing like that. It is uh, entirely non-sexual. You do as much as you’re comfortable with, so if your idea of regression is that everything is the same besides you wish to color or draw sometimes, then that is all you need to do.”

“You seem to know a lot about this. Have you like, done this stuff before? The regression?”

“Ah, yes, I have. I mean, I have both regressed and assisted people in regression. Including some of your band mates.” That would be as specific as Charles got with it. If anyone involved wished to tell Pickles that they had done this as well it would be their choice, not his.

Pickles nodded. “Yeah, okay. So, uh, how do I…” 

Once again, silence fell over the two men as they realized that the other was entirely okay with this. 

“Why don’t you come to my room later tonight,” Charles suggested, taking off his glasses and wiping them just so the surprised look on Pickles’ face squeezed his heart a little less. “Assuming you can go the rest of the day without breaking something, I’ll help you.”  
“You got yourself a fuckin’ deal.”

\---

Much to Charles’ surprise, and the surprise of all the others in Dethklok, the meeting seemed to hit home with Pickles. The rest of the day continued without a hitch and no more phone calls or office visits for Charles. The extra time allowed him to finish his work early so he could begin to set up his room for Pickles’ visit tonight. Any items of high emotional significance were tucked away in a closet just in case things were to go wrong but Charles doubt that. Deep down, he knew that Pickles needed this, perhaps more than any of the other members of Dethklok. 

Blankets were spread out all over the floor in case Pickles found that spreading out on the floor helped the experience. Coloring books and crayons (all brand new, as the last set had been used quite extensively in Toki’s last visit) and various sensory toys were scattered about the room in an attempt to find out what Pickles may be interested in. He had little idea of what Pickles would be like in this state, and that both worried him and excited him. Helping Pickles discover this side of himself may lead to some sort of emotional breakthrough.

When the hesitant knocks first started on Charles’ door, it was just around 10 at night. Pickles was dressed in just a tank-top and shorts, dressing about as open as he felt at the moment. Each step into the room took a tremendous amount of energy and by the time he sat down in one of the plush chairs, a tremble had overtaken the man’s entire form.

“Are you alright? I understand that this is a little bit foreign to you, but I don’t want you to be, ah, overly worried.” Charles said, sitting down in the chair across from Pickles.

“Nah, I’m okay. This is just, ah, I mean I’ve thought about this a lot since we talked and all that. About, ah, how I want this to go.”

“Well, I’m glad you thought of that in advance. What are you interested in gaining from this?”

Pickles’ tongue worked over and over in his mouth as he fiddled with the piercing inside. “Ah, I dunno, I guess. I just wanna feel like a little kid again but like. Better this time? Y’know, no bein’ yelled at for bein’ a kid. Bein’ allowed to enjoy stuff and not bein’ the fuck-up all the time.”

“So if I were to tell you I were really proud of you, would you be okay with that?” 

The color that spread over Pickles’ cheeks was all the answer that Charles needed. The man nodded, mouth opening and closing a few times before he just nodded again. 

“Good,” Charles replied, “So… be a kid. I’ll be, ah, watching you and if you need anything, let me know.”

It took little time for Pickles to start moving. The first place he went was to the floor where he noticed several drawing pads and sets of colored pencils for him to use. His first doodles were hesitant, tiny things using one color, but Charles noticed that as the man began to settle into this headspace, the drawings got more vibrant and expressive.

“Do you like to draw, Pickles? I, ah, never noticed that about you.”

Pickles nodded. “Yeah. ‘s fun.”

Charles leaned over Pickles to investigate what he was working on now. It seemed to be a rudimentary picture of the band, Charles included. 

“I ah, like what you’re working on. The pattern on my tie is creative. What’s it supposed to be?”

Pickles hummed. “It’s, ah, like a rainbow octopus. Like, a bunch of them.”

Charles nodded and sat down on the floor besides Pickles. His legs would ache later but that could be dealt with when the time came.

“Interesting. And, ah, that?”

Charles was pointing at another drawing on the same page that seemed to just be harsh lines and corners in every color. Underneath the scribbling was what appeared to be a face but it was hard to tell. Whatever it was, Pickles had worked hard to cover it. 

“Nothin’,” Pickles said. “Just colors.”

“Is it? It looks like you scribbled over something here. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I didn’t like it.”

“I might have liked it.”

“I don’t think you would’ve.”

“Is it your brother?”

Pickles’ hand paused from where it had been feverishly coloring in his own dreadlocks. “Yeah. That’s why you wouldn’t have liked it. He sucks.”

Charles hummed in understanding. “Ah, right. He does, uh, suck.”

“Yeah. He was always mean to me. He flushed some of my toy cars down the toilet one time and blamed it on me. Parents made me do chores for months to pay them back for the plumbing bill.”

“That’s terrible,” Charles said, attempting to keep any emotion from entering his voice lest he upset Pickles. “You didn’t deserve that. I bet, ah, I bet you were a very sweet kid, Pickles.”

Pickles looked up at Charles. His green eyes were damp with unshed tears and wide, childlike. “You really think so?”

“Of course, Pickles. You were probably very, very good. I know no one told you that even though you really deserve to hear it. You’re a good kid.”

Without a word, Pickles began to move. At first, Charles was worried that the man was having some sort of fit but instead he had bony arms and legs wrapping around him and a face buried in his neck. Pickles’ entire body was heaving as he wept onto Charles. No stranger to grand outpourings of emotion, Charles just rubbed circles onto the man’s back and let him cry it all out. 

“Shh, shh,” Charles said. “It’s alright. You, ah, you really needed to hear that didn’t you?”

Charles assumed the loud whine from Pickles was a ‘yes’. 

“Thank you,” Pickles groaned, “for...”

“I know,” Charles said. “I know. After you get it all out, how about we watch some TV together and you can, ah, tell me about some of your other drawings.”

“I can stay?”

“As long as you need.”


End file.
